Plowshares is a nonprofit organization that has been providing free hot meals and other services to the hungry and homeless since 1983 in Ukiah, California. Ukiah is located about two hours north of San Francisco on U.S. Highway 101. Plowshares relies almost entirely on local donations and the invaluable help of dedicated volunteers to run its Community Dining Room, Homeless Services, and Meals-on-Wheels programs with very little government funding.
Plowshares Community Dining Room serves a free hot meal every weekday evening, open to all, with no questions asked. Seniors and families with small children are served at a separate, early seating. Most of the food used in these meals is donated by local food producers and retailers, and most of the work is done by volunteers. Our Community Dining Room serves over 27,000 meals a year.
Learn more about our Services & Hours
Meals-on-Wheels provides hot nutritious meals to hundreds of disabled, homebound seniors in the Ukiah area. It also provides a daily social and welfare check-in for seniors who are often alone all day otherwise. Plowshares delivers about 24,000 Meals-on-Wheels annually. This program is partially funded by a grant from United Way.
Plowshares Homeless Services, free to the homeless only, include: laundry vouchers, use of a telephone, mailing address and message service; voicemailboxes, haircuts, socks, diapers, dog food, etc.; and resource/referral information and outreach services.
Plowshares Food-Service Job Training Certification Program, offered through the Regional Occupational Program, provides 525 hours of hands-on and classroom training in food preparation and safety. No experience is necessary; this program gives marginally employable persons professional training for getting and keeping a job in the food-service industry. On completion of the class, students receive a certificate of completion, job references as requested, and are prepared to take the industry-standard ServSafe certification test.
Plowshares Food Share Program allows us to share surplus donated food with other local agencies. This food, which would otherwise go to waste, becomes a tax deduction for the local retailers who donated, a primary source of bounty for our food programs, and is made available at extremely low share of cost to other local agencies, such as the Ukiah Community Center's Food Bank, that serve very low-income clientele. So our Food Share program is a win-win-win arrangement.
These local retailers donate food and/or services on a regular basis:
— Isaiah 2:4
